The Poetry of Statius

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 93

be felt to be significant even in the Thebaid. Though the deaths of
individuals are still there with their own particular woundings, these
episodes, as we have seen, are often foreshortened. On the other hand,
as I have discussed elsewhere, Hypsipyle’s insistence on narrating the
fates of her own family during the night of killing of the Lemnian men
at Theb. 5.218–9 might seem to be a reversal of Lucan’s position,
since Hypsipyle states her intention to concentrate on the individual
members of her family:^19

non ego nunc uulgi quamquam crudelia pandam

fu nera, sed propria luctus de stirpe recordor

I will not now set out the deaths of the crowd, cruel though they were,

but I recall griefs from my own family

Nevertheless, one can note a passage where Statius shows two meth-
ods of describing a kind of aristeia whilst both adhering to and also
going against Lucan’s point about the need not to give the deaths of
individuals. The passage in question occurs during the night raid
against the Thebans in Book 10.
Firstly Statius presents the achievements of Thiodamas:

quis numeret caedes, aut nomine turbam

exanimem signare queat? subit ordine nullo

tergaque pectoraque et galeis inclusa relinquit

murmura permiscetque uagos in sanguine manes:

hunc temere explicitum stratis, hunc sero remissis

gressibus inlapsum clipeo et male tela tenentem,

coetibus hos mediis uina inter et arma iacentes,

adclines clipeis alios, ut quemque ligatum

infelix tellure sopor supremaque nubes

obruerat.

(Theb. 10.273–82)

Who might count the slaughter, or be able to mark out the lifeless

crowd with names? In no sequence he comes upon backs and breasts

and leaves murmurs shut in helmets and mingles wandering ghosts in

blood: this one rashly laid out on his bedding, this one slipping on his

shield, too late, with uncontrolled steps and holding his weapons with-

out success, these in the middle of the throng as they lay amid wine and

weapons, others leaning on their shields, as unlucky sleep and the final

darkness had overwhelmed each of them and tied them to the ground.

19 See Gibson 2004, 160.